We walked into his house around seven in the morning; in time for breakfast. I was famished but not tired. We had left the cave to climb down to the valley at dawn. Don Juan, instead of following the most direct route, made a long detour that took us along the river. He explained that we had to collect our wits before we got home.
I answered it was very kind of him to say 'our wits' when I was the only one whose wits were disordered. But he replied that he was acting not out of kindness, but out of warrior's training. A warrior, he said, was on permanent guard against the roughness of human behavior. A warrior was magical and ruthless; a maverick with the most refined taste and manners, whose wordly task was to sharpen, yet disguise, his cutting edges so that no one would be able to suspect his ruthlessness.
After breakfast I thought it would be wise to get some sleep, but don Juan contended I had no time to waste. He said that all too soon I would lose the little clarity I still had, and if I went to sleep I would lose it all.
"It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there is hardly any way to talk about intent" he said quickly as he scrutinized me from head to toe. "But making this statement doesn't mean anything. It is the reason why sorcerers rely instead on the sorcery stories. And their hope is that someday the abstract cores of the stories will make sense to the listener."
I understood what he was saying, but I still could not conceive what an abstract core was or what it was supposed to mean to me. I tried to think about it. Thoughts barraged me. Images passed rapidly through my mind giving me no time to think about them. I could not slow them down enough even to recognize them. Finally anger overpowered me and I slammed my fist on the table.
Don Juan shook from head to toe, choking with laughter.
"Do what you did last night," he urged me, winking. "Slow yourself down."
My frustration made me very aggressive. I immediately put forth some senseless arguments; then I became aware of my error and apologized for my lack of restraint.
"Don't apologize," he said. "I should tell you that the understanding you're after is impossible at this time. The abstract cores of the sorcery stories will say nothing to you now. Later- years later, I mean- they may make perfect sense to you."
I begged don Juan not to leave me in the dark; to discuss the abstract cores. It was not at all clear to me what he wanted me to do with them. I assured him that my present state of heightened awareness could be very helpful to me in allowing me to understand his discussion.
I urged him to hurry, for I could not guarantee how long this state would last. I told him that soon I would return to my normal state and would become a bigger idiot than I was at that moment. I had said it half in jest. His laughter told me that he had taken it as such, but I was deeply affected by my own words. A tremendous sense of melancholy overtook me.
Don Juan gently took my arm, pulled me to a comfortable armchair, then sat down facing me. He gazed fixedly into my eyes, and for a moment I was incapable of breaking the force of his stare.
"Sorcerers constantly stalk themselves," he said in a reassuring voice, as if trying to calm me with the sound of his voice.
I wanted to say that my nervousness had passed and that it had probably been caused by my lack of sleep, but he did not allow me to say anything.
He assured me that he had already taught me everything there was to know about stalking, but I had not yet retrieved my knowledge from the depth of heightened awareness where I had it stored.
I told him I had the annoying sensation of being bottled up. I felt there was something locked inside me; something that made me slam doors and kick tables; something that frustrated me and made me irascible. [* irascible- quickly aroused to anger]
"That sensation of being bottled up is experienced by every human being," he said. "It is a reminder of our existing connection with intent. For sorcerers this sensation is even more acute, precisely because their goal is to sensitize their connecting link until they can make it function at will.
"When the pressure of their connecting link is too great, sorcerers relieve it by stalking themselves."
"I still don't think I understand what you mean by stalking" I said. "But at a certain level I think I know exactly what you mean."
"I'll try to help you clarify what you know, then," he said. "Stalking is a procedure; a very simple one. Stalking is special behavior that follows certain principles. It is secretive, furtive, deceptive behavior designed to deliver a jolt. And when you stalk yourself, you jolt yourself using your own behavior in a ruthless, cunning way."
He explained that when a sorcerer's awareness became bogged down with the weight of his perceptual input- which was what was happening to me- the best, or even perhaps the only remedy was to use the idea of death to deliver that stalking jolt.
"The idea of death, therefore, is of monumental importance in the life of a sorcerer," don Juan continued. "I have shown you innumerable things about death to convince you that the knowledge of our impending and unavoidable end is what gives us sobriety. Our most costly mistake as average men is indulging in a sense of immortality. It is as though we believe that if we don't think about death, we can protect ourselves from it."
"You must agree, don Juan, not thinking about death certainly protects us from worrying about it."
"Yes, it serves that purpose," he conceded. "But that purpose is an unworthy one for average men and a travesty for sorcerers. Without a clear view of death, there is no order; no sobriety; no beauty. Sorcerers struggle to gain this crucial insight in order to help them realize at the deepest possible level that they have no assurance whatsoever that their lives will continue beyond the moment. This realization gives sorcerers the courage to be patient and yet take action; courage to be acquiescent [* acquiescent- willing to carry out the orders or wishes of another without protest] without being stupid."
Don Juan fixed his gaze on me. He smiled and shook his head.
"Yes," he went on. "The idea of death is the only thing that can give sorcerers courage. Strange, isn't it? It gives sorcerers the courage to be cunning without being conceited, and above all it gives them courage to be ruthless without being self-important."
He smiled again and nudged me. I told him I was absolutely terrified by the idea of my death; that I thought about it constantly, but it certainly didn't give me courage or spur me to take action. It only made me cynical or caused me to lapse into moods of profound melancholy.
"Your problem is very simple," he said. "You become easily obsessed. I have been telling you that sorcerers stalk themselves in order to break the power of their obsessions. There are many ways of stalking oneself. If you don't want to use the idea of your death, use the poems you read me to stalk yourself."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I have told you that there are many reasons I like poems," he said. "What I do is stalk myself with them. I deliver a jolt to myself with them. I listen, and as you read, I shut off my internal dialogue and let my inner silence gain momentum. Then the combination of the poem and the silence delivers the jolt."
He explained that poets unconsciously long for the sorcerers' world; but because they are not sorcerers on the path of knowledge, longing is all they have.
"Let us see if you can feel what I'm talking about," he said, handing me a book of poems by Jose Gorostiza.
I opened it at the bookmark and he pointed to the poem he liked.
...this incessant stubborn dying;
this living death
that slays you, oh God,
in your rigorous handiwork;
in the roses;
in the stones;
in the indomitable stars;
and in the flesh that burns out
like a bonfire lit by a song;
a dream;
a hue that hits the eye.
...and you, yourself,
perhaps have died
eternities of ages ago out there
without us knowing about it;
we dregs, crumbs, ashes of you.
You that still are present
like a star faked by its very light;
an empty light without star
that reaches us
hiding its infinite catastrophe.
"As I hear the words," don Juan said when I had finished reading, "I feel that that man is seeing the essence of things and I can see with him. I don't care what the poem is about. I care only about the feeling the poet's longing brings me. I borrow his longing, and with it I borrow the beauty. And I marvel at the fact that he, like a true warrior, lavishes it on the recipients, the beholders, retaining for himself only his longing. This jolt, this shock of beauty, is stalking."
I was very moved. Don Juan's explanation had touched a strange chord in me.
"Would you say, don Juan, that death is the only real enemy we have?" I asked him a moment later.
"No," he said with conviction. "Death is not an enemy, although it appears to be. Death is not our destroyer, although we think it is."
"What is it, then, if not our destroyer?" I asked.
"Sorcerers say death is the only worthy opponent we have," he replied. "Death is our challenger. We are born to take that challenge, average men or sorcerers. Sorcerers know about it; average men do not."
"I personally would say, don Juan, life, not death, is the challenge."
"Life is the process by means of which death challenges us," he said. "Death is the active force. Life is the arena. And in that arena there are only two contenders at any time: oneself and death."
"I would think, don Juan, that we human beings are the challengers," I said.
"Not at all," he retorted. "We are passive. Think about it. If we move, it's only when we feel the pressure of death. Death sets the pace for our actions and feelings and pushes us relentlessly until it breaks us and wins the bout, or else we rise above all possibilities and defeat death.
"Sorcerers defeat death and death acknowledges the defeat by letting the sorcerers go free, never to be challenged again."
"Does that mean that sorcerers become immortal?"
"No. It doesn't mean that," he replied. "Death stops challenging them, that's all."
"But what does that mean, don Juan?" I asked.
"It means thought has taken a somersault into the inconceivable," he said.
"What is a somersault of thought into the inconceivable?" I asked, trying not to sound belligerent. "The problem you and I have is that we do not share the same meanings."
"You're not being truthful," don Juan interrupted. "You understand what I mean. For you to demand a rational explanation of a somersault of thought into the inconceivable is a travesty. You know exactly what it is."
"No, I don't," I said.
And then I realized that I did, or rather, that I intuited what it meant. There was some part of me that could transcend my rationality and understand and explain, beyond the level of metaphor, a somersault of thought into the inconceivable. The trouble was that part of me was not strong enough to surface at will.
I said as much to don Juan, who laughed and commented that my awareness was like a yo-yo. Sometimes it rose to a high spot and my command was keen, while at others it descended and I became a rational moron. But most of the time it hovered at an unworthy median where I was neither fish nor fowl.
"A somersault of thought into the inconceivable," he explained with an air of resignation, "is the descent of the spirit; the act of breaking our perceptual barriers. It is the moment in which man's perception reaches its limits. Sorcerers practice the art of sending scouts- advance runners to probe our perceptual limits. This is another reason I like poems. I take them as advance runners. But, as I've said to you before, poets don't know as exactly as sorcerers what those advance runners can accomplish."
In the early evening, don Juan said that we had many things to discuss and asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I was in a peculiar state of mind. Earlier I had noticed a strange aloofness in myself that came and went. At first I thought it was physical fatigue clouding my thoughts. But my thoughts were crystal clear. So I became convinced that my strange detachment was a product of my shift to heightened awareness.
We left the house and strolled around the town's plaza. I quickly asked don Juan about my aloofness before he had a chance to begin on anything else. He explained it as a shift of energy. He said that as the energy that was ordinarily used to maintain the fixed position of the assemblage point became liberated, it focused automatically on that connecting link.
He assured me that there were no techniques or maneuvers for a sorcerer to learn beforehand to move energy from one place to the other. Rather it was a matter of an instantaneous shift taking place once a certain level of proficiency had been attained.
I asked him what the level of proficiency was.
"Pure understanding," he replied. "In order to attain that instantaneous shift of energy, one needed a clear connection with intent, and to get a clear connection one needed only to intend it through pure understanding."
Naturally I wanted him to explain pure understanding. He laughed and sat down on a bench.
"I'm going to tell you something fundamental about sorcerers and their acts of sorcery," he went on. "Something about the somersault of their thought into the inconceivable."
He said that some sorcerers were storytellers. Storytelling for them was not only the advance runner that probed their perceptual limits, but also their path to perfection; to power; to the spirit.
He was quiet for a moment, obviously searching for an appropriate example. Then he reminded me that the Yaqui Indians had a collection of historical events they called 'the memorable dates'.
I knew that the memorable dates were oral accounts of their history as a nation when they waged war against the invaders of their homeland: the Spaniards first; the Mexicans later. Don Juan, a Yaqui himself, stated emphatically that the memorable dates were accounts of their defeats and disintegration.
He asked me, "So, what would you say- since you are a learned man- about a sorcerer storyteller's taking an account from the memorable dates- let's say, for example, the story of Calixto Muni- and changing the ending so that instead of describing how Calixto Muni was drawn and quartered by the Spanish executioners, which is what happened; he tells a story of Calixto Muni the victorious rebel who succeeded in liberating his people?"
I knew the story of Calixto Muni. He was a Yaqui Indian who, according to the memorable dates, served for many years on a buccaneer ship in the Caribbean in order to learn war strategy. Then he returned to his native Sonora, managed to start an uprising against the Spaniards, and declared a war of independence; only to be betrayed, captured, and executed.
Don Juan coaxed me to comment. I told him I would have to assume that changing the factual account in the manner he was describing would be a psychological device; a sort of wishful thinking on the sorcerer storyteller's part. Or perhaps it would be a personal, idiosyncratic [* idiosyncratic- peculiar to the individual] way of alleviating frustration. I added that I would even call such a sorcerer storyteller a patriot because he was unable to accept bitter defeat.
Don Juan laughed until he was choking.
"But it's not a matter of one sorcerer storyteller," he argued. "They all do that."
"Then it's a socially sanctioned device to express the wishful thinking of a whole society," I retorted. "A socially accepted way of releasing psychological stress collectively."
"Your argument is glib and convincing and reasonable," he commented. "But because your spirit is dead, you can't see the flaw in your argument."
He eyed me as if coaxing me to understand what he was saying. I had no comment, and anything I might have said would have made me sound peevish.
"The sorcerer storyteller who changes the ending of the 'factual' account," he said, "does it at the direction and under the auspices [* auspices- kindly endorsement and guidance] of the spirit. Because he can manipulate his elusive connection with intent, he can actually change things. The sorcerer storyteller signals that he has intended it by taking off his hat, putting it on the ground, and turning it a full three hundred and sixty degrees counterclockwise. Under the auspices of the spirit, that simple act plunges him into the spirit itself. He has let his thought somersault into the inconceivable."
Don Juan lifted his arm above his head and pointed for an instant to the sky above the horizon.
"Because his pure understanding is an advance runner probing that immensity out there," don Juan went on, "the sorcerer storyteller knows without a shadow of doubt that somewhere, somehow, in that infinity, at this very moment the spirit has descended. Calixto Muni is victorious. He has delivered his people. His goal has transcended his person."